Infanticide
March 2, 2012 4:21 AM   Subscribe

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Italian philosophers Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva written a controversial academic paper about infanticide. Julian Savulescu (twitter - website - wikipedia), editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, respond to some criticism. Where are the limits to free speech?
posted by - (8 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry, but the combination of what seems like trolling philosophers on an extremely difficult and notoriously hot button issue plus a million flags = this just isn't going to be a good post for Mefi. -- taz



 
No-one is able to appreciate or understand this on anything other than the most personal of terms. It's ridiculous to have legislation regarding this matter when the entire subject is made up of the most varying shades of grey possible. People will of course give their opinions on this, but nothing should ever be held up as the definitive opinion because it would be impossible for such a thing to exist.
posted by h00py at 4:30 AM on March 2, 2012


From the Abstract: - " the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled. "

Wait. WHAT? seriously WTF?
posted by Faintdreams at 4:33 AM on March 2, 2012


The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense

I can just about see the philosophical justification for this. But for how long? They talk vaguely of "days or few weeks" and to me that vagueness is the problem. Birth provides a bright, clear, unambiguous place to draw the line; a line that becomes very hard to draw any other place.
posted by adamt at 4:33 AM on March 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


Why?
posted by box at 4:37 AM on March 2, 2012


When we brought my perfectly healthy, incredibly screechy newborn daughter home from the hospital, "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?" ran through my head several times a day.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:37 AM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


This is just a bunch of bullshit designed to paint all pro-choice people as evil baby killers.
posted by humanfont at 4:38 AM on March 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


Seems like a modest proposal to me.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:39 AM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


I believe this post is slated for an after-posing abortion.
posted by ZaneJ. at 4:40 AM on March 2, 2012


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